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The Oracle: NEPA, PHCN, DISCOs: How Nigerians Pay for Darkness (Pt. 1)

Published

4 years ago

June 11, 2022

Eric

By Mike Ozekhome

INTRODUCTION

THE PHCN OR NEPA

The Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), formerly known as National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), is an, organization in charge of electricity in Nigeria. The electricity sector in Nigeria currently generates, transmits and distributes megawatts of electric power that is significantly lower than what Nigeria’s required household and industrial needs. In 2012, the industry had labored to distribute a mere 5,000 megawatts, very much less than the 40,000 megawatts needed to sustain the basic needs of the population.

HOW MUCH LIGHT DO WE HAVE?

Nigeria is endowed with large oil, gas, hydro and solar resources, and it has the potential to generate 12,522 MW of electric power from existing plants. This is the estimated quantum of electricity that Nigeria ought to be producing daily with all our numerous endowments. Unfortunately, on most days, we are only able to dispatch approximately 4,000 MW, which is insufficient for a country of over 215 million people (by UN projection), a country boasts of numerous businesses and infrastructures.

MANY SOURCES OF POWER IN NIGERIA

In Nigeria, there are four major sources through which power is provided: coal, hydro, oil (petroleum) and natural gas. Among these, the whole energy sector is dependent only on petroleum, a factor that slows down the production of electricity and development in alternative forms of energy. 45% of the Nigerian population is currently connected to the energy National grid. However, the grid only supplies energy about 85% of the time; and is virtually nonexistent in many parts of Nigeria.

After the privatization of electricity in Nigeria, the transmission and supply of power in Nigeria were divided amongst several companies with different functions. The Generating Companies (GenCos) are those in charge of the actual generation of the electricity; transmission and distribution are left to the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN), and the Distribution Companies (DisCos), respectively. The GenCos are tasked with transforming hydro and gas power into electricity power.

HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY GENERATION IN NIGERIA

Electricity was first generated in Nigeria in 1866, when two generating sets were installed in the Colony of Lagos. However, the first electric utility company in Nigeria known as the Nigerian Electricity Supply Company (NESC) was established in 1929. In 1951, the Nigerian government by an Act of Parliament, established the Electricity Commission of Nigeria (ECN), to regulate and operate power supply in Nigeria.

THE EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION

As part of the evolution in the Power Industry in Nigeria, the Federal Government by Decree No. 24 of 1972, created the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA). This was consequent upon the merger of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria (ECN) and Niger Dams Authority (NDA). In September, 1990, the partial commercialization came into being with the appointment of a Managing Director/Chief Executive to superintend over the Corporation. Also, the Authority was divided into four autonomous divisions namely: Generation and Transmission; Distribution and Sales; Engineering; Finance and Administration. Each division was headed by an Executive Director.

By the year 2000, a state-owned monopoly, the National Electric Power Authority (NEPA), was put in charge of the generation, transmission and distribution of electric power in Nigeria. NEPA operated as a vertical integrated utility company and had a total generation capacity of about 6, 200 MW from 2 hydro and 4 thermal power plants. This ended up becoming a problem as there was unstable and unreliable electric power supply situation in the country with consumers frequently exposed to power cuts and long period of power outages. It was an industry characterised by lack of maintenance of power infrastructure, outdated power plants, low revenues, high losses, power theft and non-cost reflective tariffs.

In 2001, the reform of the electricity sector began with the promulgation of the National Electric Power Policy which had as its goal as the establishment of an efficient electricity market in Nigeria. It had the overall objective of transferring the ownership and management of the infrastructure and assets of the electricity industry to the private sector with the consequent creation of all the necessary structures required to forming and sustaining an electricity market in Nigeria.

The Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) thus took further steps towards the Restructuring of the Nigerian Power Sector to establish an electricity supply that is efficient, reliable and cost-effective throughout the country and which will attract private investment. Subsequently, another Power Sector Reform Act was enacted in 2005, transferring the public monopoly of NEPA to Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) which was unbundled into 18 Business Units (BU); viz eleven (11) Distribution companies:- six (6) Generation companies and one (1) Transmission company .

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) is one of the successors of the unbundled PHCN and is currently an asset held under the custodianship of the Federal Ministry of Power. It will initially remain publicly owned. TCN has the responsibility for the management of operation, maintenance and expansion of the 132kV and 330kV transmission system. The Bureau of Public Enterprise (BPE) recently appointed a Management Contractor, Manitoba Hydro International (MHI) for TCN which took over the functions of Transmission Service Provider, System Operator and Market Operator to undertake the overall management of TCN.

System Operations (SO) function was established as a sector within the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria under t he Transmission sector. The SO has now evolved into a semi-autonomous sector under TCN and upon acquiring its license would operate as an independent company in future. The main responsibility of the System Operator is to operate the transmission system and the connected installed generation in a safe and reliable manner. SO is also responsible for the overall security and reliability of the grid system, economic dispatch of available generation resources and maintaining system stability. SO has seven functional departments namely; Operations/Control, System Planning, SCADA, Communications, Technical Services, Transitional Electricity Market and System Performance. SO is headed by the Executive Director (System Operation). The operational control hierarchy is as follows:

National Control Centre (NCC), Osogbo
Three (3) Regional Control Centres (RCCs) at Shiroro, Ikeja West and Benin. With proposed control centres at Kano, Alaoji and Gombe
Eight (8) Regional Operations Cordinating units (ROCs) at Benin, Enugu, Port-Harcourt, Bauchi, Kaduna, Shiroro, Osogbo and Lagos – several Area Control Centres covering 330kV and 132kV substations which fall under the supervision of the ROCs.

The mission statement was exercising grid control to maintain an efficient, coordinated and economic supply of electricity in accordance with the grid code and operational procedures. The vision was to operate the grid system efficiently to ensure open access, safe, reliable and economic electricity supply

In 2005, the Electric Power Sector Reform (EPSR) Act was enacted and the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) was established as an independent regulatory body for the electricity industry in Nigeria. In addition, the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) was formed as a transitional corporation that comprises of the 18 successor companies (6 generating companies, 11 distribution companies and transmission company), all created from NEPA.

In 2O10, the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Plc (NBET) was established as a credible off-taker of electric power from generation companies. By November 2013, the privatisation of all generation and 10 distribution companies was completed, with the Federal Government retaining the ownership of the transmission company. The privitisation of the 11th distribution company was completed in November 2014.

Nigeria, known to have Africa’s largest economy, has one of the world’s worst power sectors, producing an average of 5,000 megawatts of electricity for a population of about 200 million since the establishment of its electricity institutions. According to World Bank Report, over 80 million people do not have access to the national grid; and power shortages cost the country $29 billion. By comparison, South Africa, the continent’s second biggest economy, generates about 55,000 megawatts for a population of only about 58 million. Successive governments have tried, but failed to reform Nigeria’s energy sector. The main problems are decaying infrastructure, low investment, debts, and poor management. There are also “operational inefficiencies”, so said PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), in a 2020 report.

THE OPERATION OF THE POWER SECTOR

TRANSMISSION

The Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) manages the electricity transmission network in the country. It is one of the 18 companies that was unbundled from the defunct Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN) in April 2004 and is a product of a merger of the transmission and system operations parts of PHCN. It was incorporated in November 2005 and issued a transmission licence on July 1, 2006. The TCN is presently fully owned and operated by the government and as part of the reform programme of the government, it is to be reorganised and restructured to improve its reliability and expand its capacity.

TCN’s licensed activities include electricity transmission, system operation and electricity trading. It is responsible for evacuating electric power generated by the electricity generating companies (GenCos) and wheeling it to distribution companies (DisCos). It provides the vital transmission infrastructure between the GenCos and the DisCos’ Feeder Sub-stations. TCN consists of three operational departments:

TRANSMISSION SERVICE PROVIDER (TSP)

The TSP oversees the development and maintenance of the transmission infrastructure. It is responsible for the national inter-connected transmission system of substations and power lines and providing open access transmission services. Its role is to maintain the physical infrastructure that make up the transmission grid and expand it to new areas.

SYSTEM OPERATIONS (SO)

The SO manages the flow of electricity throughout the power system from generation to distribution companies. It operates the Grid Code for the Nigerian Electricity Supply Industry (NESI). The SO has the responsibility for ensuring that the transmission grid lines are reliable and maintaining the technical stability of the grid through its operations of planning, dispatch, and control of the electricity on the grid.

MARKET OPERATIONS (MO)

The MO administers the market rules of the NESI. It is responsible for the administration of the Electricity Market and promoting efficiency in the market. Specifically, the roles of MO include implementing and administering the Nigerian Electricity Market Rules;

drafting and implementing the Market Procedures;

administration of the Commercial Metering System by ensuring that each trading point has adequate metering systems in place;

administration of the Market Settlement System;

Administration of the Payment System and commercial arrangement of the energy market, including Ancillary Services;

supervising Electricity Market Participants’ compliance with and enforcing the Market Rules and the Grid Code. The functions also encompass

periodic reporting on the implementation of the Market Rules;

capacity building of market of Participants on the Market Rules and Procedures and Trading Arrangements, finally,

At the long-term stage of the electricity market, of the MO is to ensuring and promoted competition among market participants.

THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK

“Good governance, safety, a chance to grow economically and professionally – those are important things”. (Dana Perino).

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UBA Reinforces Commitment to Rewarding Customer-Loyalty with N400m Bonus

Published

1 day ago

July 1, 2026

Eric

UBA Rewards Customer Loyalty with Over ₦400 Million Bumper Account Anniversary Bonus
…Reinforces commitment to rewarding customers for consistent savings
Africa’s Global Bank, United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, has rewarded thousands of customers with over ₦400 million in anniversary bonuses under its flagship UBA Bumper Account, reaffirming the Bank’s unwavering commitment to rewarding customer loyalty and promoting a strong savings culture.

The payout, one of the largest loyalty rewards under the Bumper Account initiative since its launch, saw qualifying customers receive anniversary bonuses directly into their accounts, demonstrating UBA’s resolve to create lasting value for customers who consistently save with the Bank.

The UBA Bumper Account is a unique savings product that rewards customers simply for maintaining and growing their savings. Every year an eligible account reaches its anniversary, customers receive a cash bonus, making disciplined saving both rewarding and beneficial over time.
Speaking on the milestone, UBA’s Head, Retail Products, Tomiwa Sotiloye, said the Bank remains committed to ensuring that customers benefit directly from their relationship with UBA.

“At UBA, we believe customer loyalty deserves meaningful recognition. Every bonus paid is our way of saying ‘thank you’ to customers who continue to trust us with their financial aspirations. Surpassing the ₦400 million milestone reflects our commitment to creating products that not only help customers save but also reward them in tangible ways. It is another demonstration that when our customers grow, we grow with them.”

He added that both new and existing customers can open a UBA Bumper Account seamlessly through https://on.ubagroup.com/bumper-tc, any any UBA branch, the UBA Mobile Banking App, by dialing *919#, or online, positioning themselves to qualify for future anniversary rewards.

Also speaking, UBA’s Group Head, Brands, Marketing and Corporate Communications, Alero Ladipo, said the Bank’s customer-centric philosophy continues to shape its product offerings.

“The UBA Bumper Account reflects our unwavering commitment to putting customers first. We deliberately design products that reward responsible financial behaviour while delivering real value. Crediting over ₦400 million directly into customers’ accounts is not just a payout; it is evidence of our promise to make banking more rewarding and to continually appreciate the confidence our customers repose in us.”

The UBA Bumper Account remains one of the Bank’s flagship retail savings products, combining competitive savings benefits, digital convenience and attractive loyalty rewards. It forms part of UBA’s broader strategy to deepen financial inclusion by encouraging sustainable savings habits while delivering exceptional customer experiences.

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Dele Momodu Leadership Centre Hosts Media Scholar, Prof Abiodun Adeniyi

Published

1 day ago

July 1, 2026

Eric

By Anjorin Fehintola Stella

We often measure leadership by the institutions people build or the positions they occupy. Yet, during his visit to the Dele Momodu Leadership Centre, Professor Abiodun Adeniyi repeatedly returned to something less visible but perhaps more enduring; the responsibility of documenting one’s life and thoughts. He spoke as someone who understands, at a personal level, what is lost when experience is left unrecorded. His emphasis on documentation was not stylistic advice for writers. It was an argument about memory itself, about how societies retain or lose the wisdom of the people who pass through them.

Ideas disappear when they are undocumented because memory, at the collective level, is fragile and selective. A society does not remember everything that happens within it, it remembers what is written down, repeated, taught, or institutionalised. An undocumented thought, however brilliant, dies with the person who held it, or worse, drifts into vague anecdote, stripped of its original precision. This is why oral cultures, for all their richness, often struggle to transmit complex ideas across generations with fidelity. Professor Adeniyi’s point, then, was not simply about personal record-keeping. History remembers people largely through what they leave behind, not through what they intended to leave behind. Intention without artefact disappears.

When he spoke about travelling, it would be easy to reduce his words to a fondness for movement or exposure. But the deeper claim runs further than that. Travel disrupts familiarity. It exposes individuals to different ways of living, thinking, governing and imagining society. Professor Adeniyi suggested that travelling remains one of the simplest yet most profound forms of education because it broadens not only knowledge but perspective. A person confined to one environment mistakes the local for the universal. Movement across geographies forces a confrontation with alternative logics, alternative arrangements of power, family, and meaning, and that confrontation is often where genuine learning begins.

Perhaps the strongest advice he gave concerned the pursuit of a doctorate. When Aare Dele Momodu spoke of his desire to pursue a PhD, Professor Adeniyi’s response challenged a growing culture in which academic qualifications are sometimes pursued as symbols of prestige rather than vehicles of inquiry. A PhD earned for the title that follows a name produces a credential without a contribution. A PhD earned out of genuine curiosity produces new knowledge and, more importantly, sustains the kind of intellectual restlessness that defines a thinking life. Professor Adeniyi’s counsel was that one should choose a field that strikes them professionally and personally, something that connects to lived purpose rather than social signalling, because the value of advanced study lies in the questions it forces a person to keep asking long after the degree is conferred.

Professor Abiodun did not reserve his counsel for matters of scholarship alone. Turning to the younger staff in the room, Professor Adeniyi offered something closer to reassurance than instruction, that everything they are currently going through, the uncertainty, the striving, the sense of being far from where they hope to be, is a phase both he and Aare Dele Momodu have lived through themselves. It was a reminder that ambition rarely moves on a straight or visible timeline. The goals and dreams that feel distant now are not denied, only delayed, and what stands between the present moment and their fulfilment is simply time and dedication, applied without pause.

Underneath all these threads, travel, documentation, the meaning of scholarship, was a single, unifying idea about legacy. Legacy isn’t what people say about you. It’s what remains after you leave. This distinction matters because praise is temporary and circumstantial, shaped by mood, politics, and memory’s natural decay. What remains, however, is structural. It is the book on a shelf, the institution still running, the idea still being taught.

This is where the conversation returned, inevitably, to the Centre itself. The library. The scholars’ rooms. The conversations. The institution. Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by what he encountered, not by the scale of the buildings, but by what the buildings were designed to hold. Perhaps that is why Professor Adeniyi appeared genuinely moved by the Centre. It was never merely about architecture. It was about permanence. Buildings become legacy only when they preserve ideas.

Every visit leaves footprints. Some are physical. Others are intellectual. Professor Abiodun Adeniyi’s visit left the latter.

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Lagos Govt Sues for Calm As Flood Ravages City, Okays Dredging of 28 Channels

Published

1 day ago

July 1, 2026

Eric

The Lagos State Government has appealed for calm following persistent rainfall and flash floods across many parts of the State over the past two weeks, announcing the immediate dredging of 28 additional primary drainage channels to improve flood control.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu approved the emergency dredging intervention as part of efforts to strengthen the state’s drainage network.

The Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, Tokunbo Wahab, said the recent downpours are an extreme weather event that produced an unusually large volume of rainfall within a short period, overwhelming drainage systems in some locations and causing temporary flooding in parts of Victoria Island, Lekki, Ikeja, Gbagada, Mushin, Mafoloku and other communities.

According to him, the situation was not peculiar to Lagos; several African countries and parts of North America also experienced heavy rainfall and flooding during the same period.

Wahab, however, said Lagos presents a more complex hydrological challenge because of its extensive network of lagoons, rivers, creeks and tidal water bodies, coupled with its high rainfall intensity.

He explained that the interaction between the Atlantic Ocean, Lagos Lagoon and inland waterways, especially during high tide, naturally slows the discharge of storm-water into the sea, leading to temporary flooding in low-lying areas during exceptionally heavy rainfall.

The commissioner assured residents that the government was closely monitoring drainage infrastructure, flood-prone areas and major channels across the State.

He added that emergency response agencies have been deployed to affected areas to facilitate the quick recession of floodwaters and provide necessary support to residents.

Wahab said the government would continue to invest in drainage construction, channelisation, desilting, and other flood-control infrastructure, but stressed that residents also have a responsibility to support these efforts.

He urged residents to stop dumping refuse into drains, canals and waterways, warning that blocked drainage channels and illegal reclamation of wetlands contribute significantly to flooding.

He also cautioned against building on drainage alignments and engaging in activities that could obstruct the free flow of storm-water.

The commissioner said the increasing frequency of extreme rainfall events across coastal cities is a clear indication of the impact of climate change.

“Lagos is not exempt from these realities. However, the State Government remains steadfast in its commitment to building a flood-resilient city through sustained infrastructure development, environmental enforcement and active collaboration with residents,” he said.

Wahab described flood management as a shared responsibility, urging residents to keep drainage channels free of debris and to report any activities that could obstruct storm-water flow.

He also advised motorists to avoid driving through flooded roads during heavy rainfall and urged residents, particularly those in flood-prone communities, to comply with weather advisories and safety instructions issued by relevant government agencies.

He reaffirmed the government’s commitment to protecting lives and property through proactive flood management measures and called for continued public cooperation in building a cleaner, safer and more resilient Lagos.